Running Naked through the Internet category archive

At Psychology Today Blogs, Mike Brooks argues that no one really cares about your “social” media posts, certainly not in proportion to the amount of time most “social” media users spend using “social” media. He offers several arguments.

Among other arguments, he suggest that others care about your posts to the same degree that you care about theirs:

In other words, after you connect a light fixture to Alexa, Amazon wants to know every time the light is turned on or off, regardless of whether you asked Alexa to toggle the switch. Televisions must report the channel they’re set to. Smart locks must keep the company apprised whether or not the front door bolt is engaged.

I second the advice that Farron gives at the end of the video: Turn off the “Location Services” in your phone or tablet unless you have a positive need for it. Also, when considering installing a new app, inspect the permissions it requests carefully. If they seem hinky, find an alternative.

Naveed Saleh reports that enthusiasm for Facebook seems to be waning, citing surveys that show more and more persons are taking longer breaks from the Wells Fargo of social media and that a significant number of persons are removing the Facebook app from their smartphones.*

At Psychology Today Blogs, he suggests ten reasons why this might be so. Here’s one; follow the link for the rest.

*Even if you don’t intend to dial back you Facebook usage, not using their smartphone app is a wise choice. It spies on users relentlessly. When I visit Facebook, which I must do once or twice a month as part of outreach efforts for outfits I reach out for–when you do outreach, you have to reach out to where the people are–I use a private browser window, so Facebook cannot continue to spy on me after I’m done with them.

I normally keep the GPS on my Android phone turned off, unless I have a positive need to use it. For example, I turn it on when I am using Move! Bike Computer to record a bicycle ride. Also, I don’t use the phone for navigation. I use maps.

Remember maps? They are big and colorful and easy to read and don’t talk back.

Yesterday, I turned the GPS on to perform a function and neglected to turn it off when I was done.

After going out for Sunday morning breakfast at our favorite breakfast place (it’s not fancy, but the food is good, the prices reasonable, the people nice, and the country ham to die for), we stopped at a local commercial emporium to purchase some items. Shortly thereafter, I received a message from Google asking me to provide a review of [name of commercial emporium].

I won’t make that mistake again.

It’s not Google’s business, or anyone else’s business, where the hell I choose to shop. Or where you choose to shop.

And people worry about the NSA and surveillance, for Pete’s sake, while they run nekkid through Silicon Valley without consciousness of their nekkidness, as Adam and Eve in Eden before eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

The man told the family he had audio recordings from inside their house. He sent back the files and indeed, they were the family’s conversations, Danielle said.

(snip)

In a statement to KIRO, Amazon said, “Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like ‘Alexa.’ Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a ‘send message’ request. At which point, Alexa said out loud ‘To whom?’ At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customer’s contact list. Alexa then asked out loud, ‘[contact name], right?’ Alexa then interpreted background conversation as ‘right.’ As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely.”

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